Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #17444022just wanted to say that this was one of the first posts i read when becoming a member of POTN. I had just bought my XSi and was getting back into photography after quite a few years off. Years before I had done some "professional" photography to supplement my design work, but my Coolpix 990 had grown old and I basically stopped taking pictures. My formative film days were WAY behind me at that point.

This thread, among many others, was of great help restarting the brain cells that held what i knew to be true from back in my film days. Just wanted to send a thanks out to you Skip for putting it together, and to the others (wilt) for keeping it going and continuing to answer questions about the issue.

cheers to you guys!

Many thanks for the comments.

Skip DouglasA few cameras and over 50 years behind them .......... but still learning all the time.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #17444022just wanted to say that this was one of the first posts i read when becoming a member of POTN. I had just bought my XSi and was getting back into photography after quite a few years off. Years before I had done some "professional" photography to supplement my design work, but my Coolpix 990 had grown old and I basically stopped taking pictures. My formative film days were WAY behind me at that point.

This thread, among many others, was of great help restarting the brain cells that held what i knew to be true from back in my film days. Just wanted to send a thanks out to you Skip for putting it together, and to the others (wilt) for keeping it going and continuing to answer questions about the issue.

cheers to you guys!

Indeed! Cheers to Skip and Wilt for keeping this information going. I was teaching some photography last weekend and explaining the relationship between distance, focal length and perspective in portraits and this reminded me that next time I can direct learners back to this thread!

Dogwheels wrote in post #17692229Does that mean those guys are wrong and there is not such things as the medium format look coming from longer normal lens (80mm for medium format relative to 50mm for 24x36) ?

Both of the primary authors of the linked blogs seem to believe that perspective is based on the focal length of the lens used. As we have proven early in this thread, that is definitely not true.

Skip DouglasA few cameras and over 50 years behind them .......... but still learning all the time.

Unfortunately that article gets it all wrong. It fails to recognize that the normal focal length for any format is proportional to its format size. So if I shoot a photo with 150mm normal lens on 4x5 I get exactly the same perspective as shooting with a 30mm lens on APS-C. The FL is not what matters...it is camera position, and position is the same with both (very different sized) cameras -- unlike the horridly inaccurate statement in the link would have you believe!

Just created this post for another thread, but added it to this sticky to expand upon the principles discussed in this sticky.

Perspective -- the relationship of a subject to objects around it -- can distort our perception of its relative size. Perspective distortion, a simple principle to illustrate for yourself, no need for any texts...

Put one hand very close to the lens (1') note how 'big' it appears to be, relative to the size of the other hand (farther from the lens). For this exercise, your front hand is 'the subject' and the rear hand is one of the 'objects surrounding the subject'.

Now without moving your two hands' position relative to one another,

initial position 1' away from the lens, observe the relative size of the hands.

back away from the lens by about 2' and observe the relative size of the hands.

back away from the lens by about 4' and observe the relative size of the hands.

Now let's look at constant framing (relative to size of closest hand)...I did this via postprocessing crop, but you could have done it at time of shooting with framing change by selection of FL, at the same three shooting distances to subject as used for the previous series!

Obviously your two hands have not changed in size, only the relative distances of lens vs. each hand. Another example of relative size, hold our hand out in front of you, as jumbo jet passes by in the sky. We know the jumbo jet truly dwarfs our hand, yet in the sky it is so small it is easily concealed from view by a hand.

And the relative size of the two hands -- at one set distance from the camera -- does NOT change simply due to the use of a different FL lens to shoot the shot. FL changes framing only, not perspective. Camera position matters, FL of the lens is NOT what changes perspective!

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